New York: St Martin's Minotaur, (1999) dj. Hardcover first edition - The author's first mystery, introducing Pat Montella, one in which events from the Civil War are still affecting the present. "Pat Montella is summoned from her dreary office job in suburban Pennsylvania by an unusual request from a stranger. Ninety-one-year-old Magnolia Shelby wants to bequeath to Pat, in her will, her house and acreage in rural Virginia. The only condition is that Pat must visit during the first week of May in order to learn what this is all about. What she finds is Bell Run, a Civil War-era estate and battleground inhabited by the enigmatic Miss Maggie, a retired history teacher with a passion for the Civil War. " 326 pp. ISBN: 0-312-209606.